RESEARCH COMMUNICATION SKILLS FOR ACADEMIC STAFF: LESSONS OF EXPERIENCE

In recent years, the issues of academic staff continuing training and development have become increasingly prominent. More specifically, staff development programmes have focused on enhancing the abilities of academic staff members to succeed and advance in academics. A special challenge for today’s Russian universities is to prepare academic staff for participation in the global research network. Recognising the fact that English proficiency is a prerequisite for effective research communication in an international context, the present paper constitutes a general description of an in-house training course which has developed a coherent approach to the teaching of research communication skills linked to the learning of English as a foreign language.

The presented work is part of a larger project on improving employees’ English language proficiency and academic writing skills, which was launched by South Ural State University (SUSU) in 2006. Research showed that in the teaching of English as a foreign language to Russian-speaking L1 university teachers and scholars opportunities should be sought for more intensive and integrated study of language and research communication skills acquisition than is commonly the case.

English for Research Communication Purposes (ERCP) course was designed as an in-house training course for the academic staff of SUSU. Based upon the principles of situated and self-directed learning, the course design relies on a ‘learning by doing’ methodology, laying stress on the mastery of predetermined criteria and research communication skills practice, incorporating tasks, relating to the trainees’ immediate communicative needs beyond the classroom, contributing to their sense of progress and achievement. The author specifies the goals to be reached, outlines the strategies and means to attain them, exemplifies a line of practical tasks and activities relevant to the course participants’ needs.

The paper provides a reflection on the results yielded and proposes an empirically-grounded pedagogical framework for teaching ERCP informed by the results of the research into ERCP intervention designed to address Russian-speaking L1 teacher-scholars’ challenges with academic publication and presentation in English.